On Tuesday 16 October, musician Donald McCombie and four members of the Adderbury Village side were able, at short notice, to join members of years 5 and 6 and their teachers at Christopher Rawlins Primary School to help them with their studies on the aftermath of the First World War in their village.

After fielding lots of interesting questions from the children on the origins of the Morris, our recent tour to the Somme and Passchendaele and the stories behind the Adderbury dancers who joined the conflict, Donald gave an abridged version of his ‘Story of the Dancer’ illustrated by a selection of our dances. Dave Reed played his harmonica and explained about the origin of our topless pyramid of hats, Donald led a rousing version of his song ‘Never Dance Again’ and our dancers with help from Linda Leslie, of Sharp & Blunt, taught the children a version of Shepherds’ Hey.

The children were very receptive and enjoyed learning about and practising our dances. Their class teacher thanked us for our input and asked whether we would be prepared to run a weekly after school Morris dance activity. I am very grateful to those who generously gave up their time for this workshop and hope that several of the children who took part will wish to join one of the three Adderbury sides in the future.

Squire John Ekers